Scored a cheap IIci that appears to be in good condition. It just needs... every part

[benanderson89]

I scored a IIci for super cheap (GBP£30). No floppy drive, no hard disk, no drive cage, no reset/interrupt buttons and no PSU, but the motherboard looks super clean and just needs a recapping.

Since I'm also in the process of restoring two Macintosh Classics, one of them beyond repair (battery exploded and tube imploded), I now have a spare 80MB SCSI Disk, a Spare 1.44MB Floppy Drive and the two 1MB SIMMS from it's memory expansion board. Other than a PSU, which I'll wire up from a modern ATX (hopefully without blowing everything up), I should hopefully have a working IIci for nothing but the cost of some replacement capacitors and a video adaptor.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Jinnai]

I'm guessing you're in the UK? I have a parts IIci that's mostly complete but might be difficult to ship things to the UK.

 

[benanderson89]

The only thing I really need are the front buttons and the drive cage. Outside of that I should have everything I need! If I can't find what I need in the UK I might give you a shout.

 

[ScutBoy]

I've got a bunch of IIci donor parts as well, including power supplies. I'm also in the US, but if you need something,let me know.

 

[benanderson89]

Are the power supplies for these switchable between 120 and 240v?

 

[ScutBoy]

Are the power supplies for these switchable between 120 and 240v?

The label says

110-240V

50-60Hz

So I'm guessing yes, but you should probably verify on-line. I think Apple was pretty good about "universal" power supplies in this era.

 

[cheesestraws]

FWIW, the only non-universal power supplies I have in my macs are in the compacts, as far as I know.

 

[Solvalou]

Somewhere I have a IIci cache card that you're welcome to have for cheap. Should speed up the machine noticeably.

I'm based in the UK too. Sadly I have no other spares as I gave the bits away a few years ago.

 

[benanderson89]

More than happy to take a cache card! Name a price and I'll see. Though I want to make sure I can get it working before spending anymore money. Still waiting for the machine to arrive from eBay.

 

[NathanHill]

More than happy to take a cache card! Name a price and I'll see. Though I want to make sure I can get it working before spending anymore money. Still waiting for the machine to arrive from eBay.

I picked up an old IIci from dad's house - it has battery explosion damage, so I'm not sure if I will get the motherboard working. So, I do have some extra NUBUS cards (ethernet/video) and stuff and will be curious about your journey. I'm waffling about using the case, which is decent enough despite some battery acid residue (or whatever), to house a Raspberry Pi or something for fun.

 

[benanderson89]

Maybe see if you could put in an ATX or MATX motherboard and throw on a bunch of MAME emulators in Linux? That could be fun. Or a sleeper NAS server

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

On recasings/Mac sleepers:

IIci case can house interesting Mac boards. Played with two of the Quadra 700 triplets before the "Mac Conservation" movement took hold. With 3D printing now available, mismatched backplane panels should be easy enough to remedy. The IIci retains the third NuBus Slot lost in the Q700, which makes for a far cleaner 7100/G3 hack. I've got a working example of a Q700/7100/G3 that's been stripped of (interchangeable swappage) the various parts you need for my IIci and IIcx playtime.

Favorite project is a Quadra 700/8600/G4 for its Quadra/G4 naming convention. So you can go full blown IIci/PPC/PCI sleeper with dremel work involved for clearing underside components and printing an ISA compatible section along with the connector strip.

ATX/Pi conversions appear to be the recasing norm these days, but harking back to Mac-centric projects from the Applefritter/MLA era of yore might be interesting to some. The 8600 path amounts to the same work necessary for ATX, BTW.

 

[NathanHill]

Yeah, worst case scenario, I have a Quadra 605 board that I am going to recap. It's case is just crumbling into pieces, so it may fit. Otherwise, I will have fun. I sort have been toying with the idea of a Pi4 as an A2EServer box in the case.

But I may also look out for another IIci board on the internet too.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

BMOW did an beautiful recase of that board into a laser cut plexi case. Updating that project by incorporating the much smaller mAcTX-LC power supply might be one idea.

 

[benanderson89]

The IIci has arrived!

The motherboard is pristine other than some dirt and, of course, the caps needs replacing but it looks like it hasn't done much corrosion.

The case though is pretty much BROWN and matches my floor. It also smells horrible, like wet plaster. Smoker's computer?

Either way I'm super pleased with the condition. The case has immediately went into the retro Brighting tank.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Nice! Looks like the only somewhat difficult(?) to source part would be the relatively fragile reset button assembly? How goes the Retro Brighting process?

 

[benanderson89]

The top shell went in a tank of some (by then, weak) Peroxid/Water with UVA light, and then an afternoon in strong sun.

It's not quite perfect yet, but it's no longer brown.

The main shell went into the same peroxide mix but I think by the time that went in the peroxide was pretty much spent. It lightened it a bit, but not much. So I'm trying the Parafractic (Retro Recipes) method of just blasting it with UVA light and UVA light alone. I am stunned that it is actually working.

Comparison between the internal speaker assembly and main case, and the lid with my fully retrobrited Classic.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've got serious doubts about the UV only  process. IIRC the original process was developed and documented by real life chemical/materials science types? Further "developments" have appeared to me to be ad hoc experimentation by non-scientists? This places the issue within the Empirical versus Anecdotal Evidence in the realm of materials science. As has been assumed, if UV is the cause of case damage, I have my doubts about it being the cure?  So (aside from procrastination) I have yet to try the process at all. YMMV

 

[benanderson89]

I'm certainly seeing some kind of result, but it's been under for 24 hours by this point and it did take an initial dip in some very weak peroxide to start with. If I don't see a noticeable improvement by tomorrow afternoon, bringing it up to 48hr, then I'm buying some more peroxide to finish the job.

The lights I'm using are UV-A, rather than B or C and from my limited understanding (last time I touched any kind of materials engineering was 15 years ago in college) it's B and C that you need to avoid. A is is close to the resonant frequency of Bromide (~320nm) thus it starts reacting to it, with peroxide acting as a chemical accellerant.

Again, not a materials engineer, but that's what I understand of it.